A new school spirit is being built at 100 Mile Elementary School this year.
Since becoming the school’s principal last year, Crystal Dawn-Langton has wanted to bring something special and new to the school. She decided to divide the school up into three house teams made up of students and teachers from across different grades and classes.
“We’ve broken up the student body into three teams so we have interactions between classes, between the French Immersion and English programs and then all the adults who work in the building are also assigned to a team,” Dawn-Langton explained. “The teams are used to collect points during fun activities that promote a sense of connection and belonging in the school.”
Dawn-Langton said the house team system is modelled off of the Hogwarts Houses in the Harry Potter franchise. Throughout the year she said students can participate in events, such as a Crazy Hair Day or Anything but a Backpack Day, and earn points for their assigned team.
“The events are always accessible to everybody, they’re not tied to our intramurals. Those are created and designed for really a select group of kids, so these are school-wide events (anyone can do).”
At the end of the year, the team with the most points will receive a special grand prize which Dawn-Langton is keeping under tight wraps. Not even her fellow staff members will know what the prize is ahead of time, as they’re also on the teams.
To further increase team solidarity, Dawn-Langton decided that each house would need its own unique logo, jersey and name. During the fall she reached out to Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation artist Brent Dixon to design three different indigenous wolves for the teams.
Dawn-Langton explained that a wolf is the mascot for 100 Mile Elementary so it made sense to base the house teams off. The teams are the Timberwolves, Arcticwolves and Tundrawolves, red, grey and black respectively.
“Interweaving indigenous education and connection with indigenous communities is really important to me, so that’s why I wanted to have indigenous artwork. I think it’s just going to be really special for the kids to be wearing these jerseys proudly in the school and around town,” Langton remarked, noting she’s proud to showcase a local indigenous artist.
Last week the students received their freshly printed jerseys, much to their delight. Dawn-Langton said each student contributed $5 to get them printed with the school’s Parental Advisory Council covering half of the $4,000 cost, while the school picked up the balance.
Going forward Dawn-Langton said she’s going to dedicate one day a month as “house t-shirt day”. She hopes that when students from different classes see each other wearing the same jersey they’ll have a connection they could build a friendship on.
“I want to create a sense of excitement and belonging because when kids feel like they belong they’re most successful. Belonging equals success,” Dawn-Langton remarked.
“Nobody will ever remember the social studies project they did in Grade 4, but hopefully they will remember these team events. The competitions they had, the connections they made and the t-shirts they wore. Those are the things I think that settle into student’s hearts.”
